How Aspen Medical Completes Proactive Proposals in 30 Minutes (or Less) with Loopio

Challenge: Making Aspen Medical’s RFP Process More Efficient

In 2018, when John Kelly joined Aspen Medical as the Director of Business Development, he noticed a lack of consistency in their RFP responses. “We didn’t have an efficient way to organize and share proposal content, so our RFPs varied greatly in terms of quality and formatting,” explains John.

Aspen Medical’s business development team had lots of useful content, but it was spread across desktops, SharePoint, and previous RFPs. The team spent hours searching for content and recreating files that already existed—time that they could have spent bringing in new business.

John wanted to centralize Aspen Medical’s proposal content inside a single bid management system. This way, the business development team could quickly find materials and respond to RFPs faster. This was important because they manage a wide variety of proposals—some worth millions of dollars and 150+ pages long (not including attachments).

Solution: Faster, More Consistent Bid Development

As a self-described perfectionist, John is competitive when it comes to winning more business. “I want to win, and I was up until midnight doing tenders that I wanted to get right,” explains John. “It’s about providing a solution that I’m proud of.”

As such, John wanted to find a solution that reflected the same quality and care that he personally applied to each response. “I wanted a bid management solution that would help us create high-quality proposals faster,” says John. “Loopio stood out for the speed and consistency it delivers.” John was particularly interested in Loopio’s ability to store past RFP content in a Library and find the right answers to questions quickly through search and the Magic automation features. He also liked how the platform makes updating content easier.

“One of my biggest struggles was keeping our library up-to-date,” says John. “Loopio automatically recognizes new content and makes it available in the Library—ensuring that our global business development team finds the latest information quickly.”

Results: Creating High-Quality Proposals in Minutes—Not Hours

Aspen Medical’s business development team started using Loopio in October of 2019. In a few short months, they achieved the following results:

• Faster responses. John used to spend hours putting together proposals. Now, with Loopio’s intelligent search features, he gets some proposals done in just 15-30 minutes. He also spends less time preparing content for team members since they can find accurate, up-to-date information stored in Loopio themselves.
• Meet deadlines during times of greater proposal demand. Last November, Aspen Medical had a large spike in business. Loopio’s centralized content and automation features helped the business development team meet the increased demand under tight timelines.
• High-quality, consistent proposals. Aspen Medical’s global business development team have the latest RFP content at their fingertips— eliminating the errors and inaccuracies that come from working in silos. Also, by reducing the time spent searching for and formatting content, John’s team can better tailor their bids for each customer’s needs.
• Improved collaboration. Many of Aspen Medical’s proposals require data about multiple product lines. With Loopio, business development team members with different product expertise can easily collaborate and share content. This year, the team is set to complete 180+ RFPs annually with Loopio.